Lowlife con-artist uses internet to fleece Kiwis

Good riddance to this lowlife who, according to the NZ Herald this morning, came to this country as a visitor and scammed Kiwis using his ‘knowledge’ of how to pull confidence tricks over the internet:

Rogers, who is in his late-30s, was sentenced this week in the Napier District Court to 17 months in jail after pleading guilty to two counts of accessing a computer system for dishonest purposes. He will be deported on his release.

It’s very good to know there’s such a crime as ‘accessing a computer system for dishonest purposes’ on the statute books, and that the pattern of punishment is: (1) Prison, then (2) Deportation. Excellent.

—

While I don’t say they’re in the same league as this jailed fraudster, I noticed last year that some foundation members of the newly formed United Federation of Property Spruikers and their chums started promulgating their exaggerated, hyperbolic marketing claims in a different business area: internet marketing.

One very recent promotion from part-time property guru/internet marketing dynamic duo Dean Letfus and Shaun Stenning claims you will make so much cash from their latest ‘internet marketing’ scheme that banks will ‘beg‘ to lend you money. (Gee, boys. Exaggerate much?) Viz:

27 April 2010

Dean here.

Shaun and I said we would help teach more New Zealanders about Internet Marketing and cashflow strategies.

So we have kept our promise…… [website]

We are going to show you a strategy that you can use to build an additional stream of income that will have the bank begging to lend you money! [Comment: See?]

To say thank you we have decided to run the official Launch of our new system in New Zealand first. [Comment: Thank you? For what?]

This system is so simple even I can make it work. Which if you know me proves just how easy it is to use. : -)

We are so confident you will be blown away at the event and learn heaps we are offering a 150% guarantee on the registration fee. See what we are talking about here – [website]

I have even managed to get Shaun over IN PERSON for the 3 events hosted in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington. [Comment: IN PERSON? Oh boy! What will he be wearing?]

We’ve put the details on a special website for you to see exactly what we are showing you – [website]

So get the babysitter in, set your My Sky to Record and we look forward to seeing you next week!

In June 2009, in reply to some comments from me, Dean Letfus promoted Shaun Stenning’s geekversity enterprise as ‘experts’ …

Actually Pete it’s the Geekversity guys who are the experts. And based on the fact that their free information is valuable enough for full time internet specialists to be impressed [Comment: Oh really? But he wouldn’t name them when asked.] I can’t think of anybody better to learn from if it’s your thing.

… and told Kiwis in the most effusive, glowing terms how he’d managed to twist Shaun’s arm to travel to NZ to present his geekversity introductory sales-fest FREE and IN PERSON for Dean’s friends and family and valuable clients — well, anyone, really … former Richmastery franchisee and ‘mentor’, spruiker Steve Goodey sent out very similarly-worded invitations. (Those boys have become very close it seems, which surprises me given what Steve’s told me personally about his previous attempts to do business with Dean Letfus.)

The geekversity ‘experts’, it should be noted, were closed down at the beginning of the year with a loss of AUD$5.5m according to this newspaper report, and at the time, it appears, the business was in the process of paying out refunds to hundreds (thousands?) of dissatisfied customers.

So much for Dean Letfus’s gushy line: “Yes I know, I know, thank me later” …

So after twisting their arm to repeat their event here in New Zealand I have also managed to talk them into allowing you to come ……. FOR FREE!!
Yes I know, I know, thank me later, but for now click HERE and book to come.
Use this link then the booking is FREE and no additional promo code required!!

Some of those were probably customers who (surprise, surprise) went along to a free or cheap geekversity ‘workshop’ presented by smooth salesman Shaun Stenning IN PERSON about, you guessed it, getting rich through internet marketing … just like the one Dean Letfus promoted with such gusto last time and some, it seems likely, signed up for geekversity’s expensive (AUD$18,000!?!?) ‘mentoring’ programmes and schemes. Sound familiar?

Run a google search on Shaun Stenning + geekversity, or visit the geekversity issues group at Facebook and draw your own conclusions. [There’s a link to a June 2009 video of sales professional Dean Letfus waxing lyrical about geekversity (RIP) here.]

—

This latest sales pitch that Shaun Stenning will be presenting “IN PERSON” with spruiker Dean Letfus — and ask yourself why they’re launching it in New Zealand. Hello? — is, apparently, to do with paying these ‘internet marketing experts’ to help build websites specifically optimised to target Amazon commissions and Google Adsense:

What Does MFA Means? [sic]

A. The name MFA refers to the type of sites being built, “Made For Adsense” and “Made For Amazon”, which are two of the key monetization methods.
“[product name]” refers to the effectiveness of these kinds of sites in converting visitors into revenue.

I’m not an expert. But my conversations with people I trust about internet marketing (i.e. not these guys) leads me to suspect that these types of schemes, which pitch snake oil the Adelaide Advertiser described as “achieving financial security through the trading of internet traffic and spruiking affiliated products” are short-lived, if they are ever successful at all.

Of course I could be wrong. That happens. (Straighten me out if you have more facts.* Someone has already pointed me to Shaun Stenning’s very-expensive-looking-for-what-you-get “twa.lk”)

And I could also be wrong to suggest that this is just the latest scheme hatched by Dean Letfus and Shaun Stenning to try to ‘monetize’ the database of innocents built up by Mr ‘You can trust me, I listen to god and work for the poor. If you wanna GET RICH FAST, SIGN HERE!’.
It could be something else entirely.

But can I suggest you look at the track records of these guys and their previous ‘enterprises’? Do some due diligence and don’t believe the hype.

[…] that were online like Q: Is this a Shaun Stenning product? A: Er, cough. Well, yes and no … and Lowlife con-artist uses internet to fleece Kiwis about various operators and their track records. Perhaps it would have introduced a note of […]